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Control Your Content - Level 2

Organise Your Content

How to talk to Suppliers 

If you are considering using any kind of software, system, or service to help you preserve and provide access to your digital collections, you need to make sure that you know what you need. Being able to talk to suppliers or creators will allow you to ask the right questions to make sure you get the most out of each conversation and ensure you get the product that is right for you, regardless of whether the software is free to use or paid for.  

The approach we recommend here is to take a holistic view of how you would like to manage your collections and what technological solution would enable you to do that. Considering the points below will help you to do this.  

These points are broken down by the stages of the lifecycle to help you work through each step of your process and work out what is required. 

Creation / Collection 

  • What content types in what formats do you collect?  

  • What media do you collect records on? 

  • How will your content get from your media into the system? 

 Selection – 

  • Will you select permanent records for your collection before or after they are transferred to the system? 

  • If records need to be deleted once in the system, how will this work? 
Description 

  • What data and metadata does the system allow you to store about your content? 

  • How is this information displayed? 

  • Can you change the default settings to meet your group’s needs? 

 Management – 

  • How will the content be stored? 

  • Is more than one copy stored? 

  • How is the content displayed? 

  • Are restricted permissions possible? 
Storage – 

  • Where does the system store your content / data? 

  • How do you get your data back if needed?  

  • How do you get your data back if needed? 

 Preservation – 

  • How does the system preserve your content? 

  • Are multiple copies used, if so, where are these stored? 

  • How does the system carry out fixity checking (file validation) 
Use – 

  • Do you need additional access copies? 

  • How will our content be accessed from the system? 

 

Knowing what you need, what is a deal breaker and what are “nice to haves” will help your conversations with suppliers go smoothly and ensure you choose the right product for you. 

Make sure you follow the advice in level one and don’t put your content anywhere that you don’t fully understand how you will get it back if you need to. 

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